ljs
in
gilesanya_fic
Solstice, by LJS
A quiet Investigations and Acquisitions vignette to honour the solstice and Father's Day...
TITLE: Solstice
AUTHOR: Lori (LJS)
PAIRING: Giles/Anya
RATING: General.
LENGTH: Approximately 750 words.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Joss Whedon etc.
SUMMARY: An Investigations and Acquisitions future-fic vignette, set 15 years after the AU's version of "Chosen" and after "Postern of Fate." It's the longest evening of the longest day of the year, and Giles goes out into the fields alone.
On this longest evening of the longest day of the year, Giles goes out into the fields alone. He climbs the hill behind Swallow's Nest until he reaches an old stone wall. There's a natural seat in the wall - more worn now by time and weather than when he was a boy climbing this slope - from which he can watch the sun set over the hills.
This particular summer solstice falls just a few days after Father's Day. His David is safe in the house below; his Anya has driven to the station to collect Tariq, who had gone to London to spend Father's Day with his natural father and mother. The visit, David has told Giles with an inherited gift of understatement, did not go especially well, and Tariq is fleeing back to those who always welcome him.
Giles rests against still-warm stone and watches the horizon. Around him, the grasses whisper in a late evening breeze. Rain's coming, but it doesn't obscure the sun.
It had recently rained, the evening his father had dragged a youthful Rupert here to this field to receive judgment after Randall died. The mud had sucked at his boots as he stood, just as his father's wholly merited tongue-lashing had pushed him deeper into guilt and despair. No sun, no sun at all.
Years had gone by before Giles had been able to climb the hill without feeling that downward, drowning-on-land pull. Years had gone by before he had been able to look at his father without first feeling shame.
He feels the few jagged edges of stone under his fingers now, he traces them up and down.
David is named after Giles's father - Anya's suggestion, as it happens. She believes in balance, in order. He hadn't told her at the time what a stab the name first gave him... what odd, whispering sadness, what touches of lingering shame. That had passed quickly enough, and she would have been hurt beyond measure to think that her suggestion could have troubled him. She believes in balance, but not in vengeance any more. And she loves him, regardless of any and all mud and darkness attached to him.
His fingers slip onto sun-warmed smoothness. That sun has seemed to hang on the horizon forever.
When David had told Giles a couple of years ago that he wanted to become a Watcher, Anya had saved Giles from his first anger and fear. With her help he was able to pull himself from the memory of a ten-year-old Rupert being told about a duty he didn't want, from the memory of an older Rupert watching his Slayer fall onto the stones under the tower, from the memory of a bloody great hole in the ground and dust on his boots. With her help he is the father he wanted to be for his son David. With her help he can extend that love outward to Tariq, to Dawn, back to Buffy.
The grasses whisper in the freshening breeze. The sun still hangs on the edge.
Below him, the family car pulls into the lane. Tariq gets out first, the weight of the boy's sadness and shame clear even at this distance and in this light. Anya's out almost at once, however, and after her animated gestures and hair-ruffling, Tariq stands straighter. She kisses the boy on the cheek and pushes him toward the house. Swallow's Nest is a refuge for them all, including Tariq.
Giles smiles, even before she waves up at him and starts her own climb.
When she reaches him, he kisses away her comments and her worry. In his arms she is as light and flexible and strong as the grass which surrounds them, he thinks. She whispers just as sweetly when he lets her go, “Are you all right?”
“You always ask that,” he says, “and I always am.”
She screws up her face in characteristic inquiry (and not unjustified skepticism), but he caresses away the imminent frown before saying, “Sit with me, darling, until night comes.”
“It's almost here,” she says.
“No,” he says, “the sun's stopped just for a moment. That's what the Latin origin of 'solstice' means.”
“Always so pompous, honey,” she sighs, which makes him laugh, and she joins him on the wall. Their linked hands rest on the stones both jagged and smooth.
The sun hangs on the edge of the world for a long, long time.
TITLE: Solstice
AUTHOR: Lori (LJS)
PAIRING: Giles/Anya
RATING: General.
LENGTH: Approximately 750 words.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Joss Whedon etc.
SUMMARY: An Investigations and Acquisitions future-fic vignette, set 15 years after the AU's version of "Chosen" and after "Postern of Fate." It's the longest evening of the longest day of the year, and Giles goes out into the fields alone.
On this longest evening of the longest day of the year, Giles goes out into the fields alone. He climbs the hill behind Swallow's Nest until he reaches an old stone wall. There's a natural seat in the wall - more worn now by time and weather than when he was a boy climbing this slope - from which he can watch the sun set over the hills.
This particular summer solstice falls just a few days after Father's Day. His David is safe in the house below; his Anya has driven to the station to collect Tariq, who had gone to London to spend Father's Day with his natural father and mother. The visit, David has told Giles with an inherited gift of understatement, did not go especially well, and Tariq is fleeing back to those who always welcome him.
Giles rests against still-warm stone and watches the horizon. Around him, the grasses whisper in a late evening breeze. Rain's coming, but it doesn't obscure the sun.
It had recently rained, the evening his father had dragged a youthful Rupert here to this field to receive judgment after Randall died. The mud had sucked at his boots as he stood, just as his father's wholly merited tongue-lashing had pushed him deeper into guilt and despair. No sun, no sun at all.
Years had gone by before Giles had been able to climb the hill without feeling that downward, drowning-on-land pull. Years had gone by before he had been able to look at his father without first feeling shame.
He feels the few jagged edges of stone under his fingers now, he traces them up and down.
David is named after Giles's father - Anya's suggestion, as it happens. She believes in balance, in order. He hadn't told her at the time what a stab the name first gave him... what odd, whispering sadness, what touches of lingering shame. That had passed quickly enough, and she would have been hurt beyond measure to think that her suggestion could have troubled him. She believes in balance, but not in vengeance any more. And she loves him, regardless of any and all mud and darkness attached to him.
His fingers slip onto sun-warmed smoothness. That sun has seemed to hang on the horizon forever.
When David had told Giles a couple of years ago that he wanted to become a Watcher, Anya had saved Giles from his first anger and fear. With her help he was able to pull himself from the memory of a ten-year-old Rupert being told about a duty he didn't want, from the memory of an older Rupert watching his Slayer fall onto the stones under the tower, from the memory of a bloody great hole in the ground and dust on his boots. With her help he is the father he wanted to be for his son David. With her help he can extend that love outward to Tariq, to Dawn, back to Buffy.
The grasses whisper in the freshening breeze. The sun still hangs on the edge.
Below him, the family car pulls into the lane. Tariq gets out first, the weight of the boy's sadness and shame clear even at this distance and in this light. Anya's out almost at once, however, and after her animated gestures and hair-ruffling, Tariq stands straighter. She kisses the boy on the cheek and pushes him toward the house. Swallow's Nest is a refuge for them all, including Tariq.
Giles smiles, even before she waves up at him and starts her own climb.
When she reaches him, he kisses away her comments and her worry. In his arms she is as light and flexible and strong as the grass which surrounds them, he thinks. She whispers just as sweetly when he lets her go, “Are you all right?”
“You always ask that,” he says, “and I always am.”
She screws up her face in characteristic inquiry (and not unjustified skepticism), but he caresses away the imminent frown before saying, “Sit with me, darling, until night comes.”
“It's almost here,” she says.
“No,” he says, “the sun's stopped just for a moment. That's what the Latin origin of 'solstice' means.”
“Always so pompous, honey,” she sighs, which makes him laugh, and she joins him on the wall. Their linked hands rest on the stones both jagged and smooth.
The sun hangs on the edge of the world for a long, long time.